This week we have a special feature written by Julian Murdoch and performed by Graham Rowat! We also have an interview with the producers of the upcoming arcade documentary, 100 Yen.

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Since we're talking about arcades, there's a game I'd love to find.
This could only be in an arcade; it's a big machine. It's a quick-draw and accurate shooting game.
It only lasts five seconds.

All the targets are real and are a meter or two away from you, and you shoot with a bright beam of light or laser and there is no recoil.
When you hit a target (like a coffee cup and a regular bullseye I think maybe), a solenoid fires, busting the object apart as if it was hit with a real bullet. After the game is done, the pieces are reassembled (to hold shape either the pieces are arranged carefully or they are slightly magnetic).

You start with the blue handgun sticking into the hole where it normally resides when no one playing. You receive a signal to start, bring up the handgun and fire as quickly and accurately until your bullets or targets are used up. The lightgun is attached to the game via a cable for power and to make sure you don't steal it.

Your score is how many targets you hit and how many seconds it took. I filled up the leaderboard on the one I played. It's an awesome game.

Going to birthday parties at 'Our Place', an arcade that would open up all the games for free play during parties. I was always disappointed when we had to stop playing for the pizza, cake and singing. Their sit-down cabinet of Star Wars was my favorite arcade experience of all time.

Going to the skeevy-ass arcade in Penn Station in the 80s, while waiting for the train. Probably was full of drug dealers, pimps and prostitutes, but I didn't care - I had my dad with me, and a fistful of quarters.

Going to the skeevy-ass arcade in Penn Station in the 80s, while waiting for the train. Probably was full of drug dealers, pimps and prostitutes, but I didn't care - I had my dad with me, and a fistful of quarters.

They finally took the machines out of Chicago's Union Station a couple of years ago.

Hypatian wrote:

Words... are a big deal.

Enix wrote:

The only way writers are going to get better is if they get some decent damned editing.

Hi, I'm a 41 year old, father of two, fan of Bioshock and many, many others, ex-D&D player; loved Julian's article. In fact, I'm identifying with it to the point that I'll be sending it to my wife to say things I don't know how to verbalize to her. Thank you so much for writing it. Can we please get some game devs to listen to that on repeat? We've got some disposable income left before we retire, right Julian? Somebody make us a game!

While we're griping about our aches and pains, I'll do you one worse: At my age, I've lost a brother, and the friends I've had growing up aren't quite into the same things I am. I too am not looking for sympathy, but imagine being into all the stuff you're into and not having much of anybody to share it with. I'd kill (or at least go all Walter White) to have the friends that it sounds like you have to talk to about gaming. I'm a bit shy, so I've only got a few purely gaming friends, most significantly younger and without the same kind of older-guy lifestyle... but it isn't like what you've got. I know you're thankful for that, but be even more thankful. I'm not sure what options I have, but in the meanwhile, I'm grooming my five-year-old, one brick of cobblestone at a time. Take care and thanks again.

PS - (The overall article sounds like a good topic to turn into an episode or two of Striving as well, Shawn.)

I'd kill (or at least go all Walter White) to have the friends that it sounds like you have to talk to about gaming. I'm a bit shy, so I've only got a few purely gaming friends, most significantly younger and without the same kind of older-guy lifestyle... but it isn't like what you've got. I know you're thankful for that, but be even more thankful. I'm not sure what options I have, but in the meanwhile, I'm grooming my five-year-old, one brick of cobblestone at a time. Take care and thanks again.

It's not exactly the same thing, but there's this little website with a forum some of us go to to talk games on. It's usually a pretty friendly place.

"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." ― H.L. Mencken

I'd kill (or at least go all Walter White) to have the friends that it sounds like you have to talk to about gaming. I'm a bit shy, so I've only got a few purely gaming friends, most significantly younger and without the same kind of older-guy lifestyle... but it isn't like what you've got. I know you're thankful for that, but be even more thankful. I'm not sure what options I have, but in the meanwhile, I'm grooming my five-year-old, one brick of cobblestone at a time. Take care and thanks again.

It's not exactly the same thing, but there's this little website with a forum some of us go to to talk games on. It's usually a pretty friendly place.

One hopes that Julian's manner of coping with that situation is a bit better than what Walter White has done. I'd hate to have him shift from protagonist to antagonist, and for all of us to end up looking forward to his ultimate demise. :P

Bad writing wise, FFXIII is hard to beat. It's tragic really. They could have delivered the same game with a more down to earth (in a wildy fantastical kind of a way) plot and I'd have loved it. I'm not sure how a story gets so far from believable characters and reasonable motivations and how no one spots how bad it is before it's woven into the game.

It has occurred to me that the whole thing about characters having a rigid, inescapable purpose in life dictated to them from birth may speak more to people living in a still pretty rigid and demanding (according to my one Japanese friend who moved to the UK partly to escape it) society but I still don't think it would ring true to someone with that background.

Fantastic article and reading.

I remember, when I landed my first job in publishing, an old hand said to me that publishing jobs are basically a conveyor belt. You get onto it straight from college and drop off the other end in your twenties or thirties. The comment meant little to me at the time but it came back to me with greater meaning when I found myself approaching the wrong end of that conveyor belt in my forties.

Thanks for all the comments folks, and thanks to Graham for agreeing to the reading.

And dRailer -- All the friends I have to talk about games with, really, I met here. I didn't know Graham or Sean or Shawn or Cory or Allen or Zenke or Zacny or anyone you've ever heard on the podcast, or whom I play games with every week, and talk about games with all the time, until I started coming here, writing, posting, and playing.

The vistas they describe in Guild Wars 2, that's one reason I like the Ratchet and Clank series so much. Every new planet you visit, it pulls the camera way back so you can see a nice wide view of the terrain you're about to explore...

I thought the article reading would be corny to a fault. It was corny but not to a fault. It was well written and performed as well as any audiobook reading I have ever listened to. Good job and great idea to include this into the podcast.

Thanks for answering the question about PAX / game conference preparedness. I'm also headed to PAX Prime, and it's my first con. While I'm giddy to see all the stuff that will be there, I'm also quite apprehensive. As I was heading home from a long day of work, it was like you all were speaking to me. I will try not to stand in too many lines.

Am I the only person that actually enjoyed Spec Ops: The Line's gameplay? Am I really that easy to please when it comes to shooters? If that's the case why did I think Bulletstorm was okay but not great?

As for PAX, most folks around GamersWithJobs, at least the ones from PAX East, will tell you that the board game room is where it's at. From what I could tell, PAX East is an excuse for a lot of GWJers to get together and play board games, which makes sense as board games allow for actual interaction and socializing while the game itself provides a context or excuse for everyone to gather.

It's always going to be different, though. For me, the show floor is a pretty huge draw, though I agree with Shawn and the like. Don't bother waiting in long lines for a big name game. If anything, check online Friday night to see if anyone posted impressions, and if there's a rare one that's worth it (Aliens: Colonial Marines had a playable multiplayer demo after the single player demonstration (which, to my knowledge, has only been shown in cut-up trailers and not the full gameplay), for example), then get up early in the morning, line up when there's nothing else to do BUT line-up, and wait as little as possible to check out that big name game.

Otherwise, it's all about the smaller games and Indie Games, or the companies that somehow manage to keep it all flowing like Capcom did.

I think I have to add a late "third party caveat" to the talk about F2P affecting the output of traditional console/PC pay upfront games. I don't think it's valid to look at the games that are coming out *now* and last year as an indicator as to the investment (time and money) into that style of production since F2P has hit the major investor and media headlines. Games take 3-5 years on average to make and it wasn't really until last year that CEOs of various companies were making noises about F2P models.

Now, I'm not going to say that pay upfront games are going to disappear or make any statement about availability of AAA games... but if there is an impact on those production styles we won't likely see it until the end of 2014.

Thanks all for the replies about joining the GWJ forum. (Or is that "forums?") I have been around for a little while, but have also been mostly a lurker. Will make an effort to be more active in the community here, thank you.